The overall goal of the project is to contribute to the efforts on the establishment of comprehensive, effectively managed, and ecologically representative regional systems of marine protected areas by 2012 for the conservation of marine mammals in countries of Latin America and Caribbean, through the application of an Ecosystem Based Management approach and spatial planning.

The Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) Protocol, born out of the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region (Cartagena Convention), came into force in 2000 and is the only regional biodiversity legal agreement for the advancement of the conservation and protection of the marine environment in the Wider
Caribbean Region (WCR). All the species of the WCR listed in Annex II of the SPAW Protocol are considered to be threatened or endangered species and their capture, take or possession is prohibited, unless for traditional use to satisfy cultural and subsistence
needs. The SPAW Protocol calls for the development and implementation of conservation, recovery or management programmes, as well as guidelines and criteria for the management of protected species.